


Way of the Warden

by irhinoceri



Series: We Few Against The Wind [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Cousland (Dragon Age) is not a Grey Warden, Gen, Grey Warden Joining, Multiple Origins (Dragon Age), Multiple Wardens (Dragon Age), Ostagar (Dragon Age), POV Duncan (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:20:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27835165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irhinoceri/pseuds/irhinoceri
Summary: ...He always enjoyed interrupting an execution with the Right of Conscription...Duncan travels around Ferelden recruiting new Wardens to face the impending doom of the Fifth Blight.
Relationships: Alistair & Duncan (Dragon Age), Duncan & Warden (Dragon Age)
Series: We Few Against The Wind [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2037403
Kudos: 5





	Way of the Warden

**Author's Note:**

> This is an introduction to the multiple Wardens of "We Few Against The Wind" and a summarization of their recruitment from Duncan's perspective. While it can stand alone, particularly if you are a Duncan fan, it is meant to provide backstory for subsequent stories in the series.

First, there was Daveth and Korren.

Duncan caught Daveth trying to rob him in the Denerim market, and as was only fair, spared his life by plucking the man from the gallows. He had hopes for that one. Genevieve would have approved, or perhaps not, but either way, Duncan always enjoyed interrupting an execution with the Right of Conscription.

He was in Denerim seeking out the son of Adaia Tabris, but a two for one deal was never bad.

Korren Tabris had no intention of becoming a Warden, and was quite happy to be getting married, having no thoughts beyond defending the Alienage against human interference and raising a family there. His loyalty to his fellow elves, his father, his cousins, and his betrothed was strong.

But that was before he incurred the wrath of the humans. Before he found out what defending the Alienage cost.

In the end Korren went with Duncan, not happily, but willingly at least. He had not wanted to leave his home and his people behind, but he saw the writing on the wall. To stay would mean death for the vengeance he had taken on Vaughan Kendells.

Two souls plucked from the executioner in Denerim. Not bad.

Next came Lythra Mahariel. Another elf, this time Dalish. If Korren’s attitude of loyalty and duty was shaped by the hardscrabble close-knit life of the Alienage, Lythra was a clear product of the nomadic and reclusive Dalish. She had no interest in the world of the shemlen beyond her clan. She did not view herself as Fereldan, for the laws and boundaries of the shem were meaningless to her.

Unlike Korren, she did not see the sense in living if she had to be parted from the life she’d known. The young elven woman looked Duncan in the eye and said, “I would rather die,” when he offered the Grey Wardens as an alternative to suffering the effects of Blight sickness.

It was not the first time he’d encountered this attitude. It was not uniquely elven. He himself had chosen death over recruitment, but Genevieve had had other plans. Like his Commander before him, he did not accept Lythra’s decision to accept her end. Unlike Genevieve, it was not personal. The Dalish girl did not owe him a life for any wrong done, but he’d still be damned if he let a talented archer fling herself into the pit of despair. Not during a Blight.

He brought the sullen elf out of the deep woods where her clan was camped and introduced her to Daveth, Korren, and the rest of the Wardens traveling to Ostagar from Denerim.

They rendezvoused with the King’s army at Ostagar, but Duncan had plans to soon be off again, having other areas to visit in search of recruits. He stayed long enough to oversee the Joining of the three newest wardens. He did not want to wait long for Lythra to be joined, since she had already been exposed to the taint via the mirror she and her friend had disturbed.

Of the three recruits who undertook the Joining, only the two elves survived.

Daveth, who had so reminded Duncan of his younger self, was the first to take the chalice in hand, volunteering to do so with nervous courage. He died in agony. It was a regrettable thing, but that was the grim reality of the Joining.

Korren was shaken by the ordeal, but Lythra’s eyes grew even darker. She knelt over the still warm corpse of the thief and said, a bitter edge to each word, “Couldn’t have been me, could it have? What luck.”

He felt it wise to leave Korren and Lythra at Ostagar, under the supervision of the other, more senior Wardens, before continuing on with his recruitment efforts. Neither elf was keen to be the newest members of the order, even now that they had completed the ritual. He hoped that they would accept their place among the Wardens, eventually, but for the time being Alistair made a far better recruiting companion.

Maric’s son had his father’s good looks, that blond charm that apparently ran through the whole Theirin line, if Cailan was any indication. Alistair shared his half-brother’s easy-going, friendly personality, despite the differences of their station and upbringing. He was talkative enough to break the ice with potential recruits but sensible enough not to divulge the secrets of the order. What’s more, he had been eager to join and truly believed in the honor and glory of the Grey Wardens.

Duncan had taken Maric and Fiona’s young son under his wing just six months ago. He hoped that Fiona would forgive him for subjecting her son to the Joining, but he felt that the life of a Grey Warden would suit the lad much better than being one of the Chantry’s mage-hunters. He had not told her beforehand, though he had written to her afterwards, conveying the news in a heavily coded letter. Her response had been just as coded, but nonetheless he felt the reprimand all the way from Orlais.

Fiona hated the thought of her son being risked in the Joining, and though Duncan had purposefully waited until afterwards to tell her, Alistair’s survival still meant he would live a dangerous and short life. If he did not fall in some other battle, he would face The Calling. Fiona disapproved of this almost as much as she had disapproved of Alistair being a Templar, since she had given him over to his father as an infant hoping that he would be allowed to live a good, long, and happy life away from court.

Long and happy did not describe the life of any Warden. But Duncan still believed he was doing the lad a favor. There was more freedom and honor in being a Warden and at least he would be there to look after the boy, for as long he himself still lived. Duncan had been irritated that Eamon Guerrin had relegated Alistair to the Chantry at the age of ten, and that Maric had allowed it, but there had been nothing he himself could do about it at the time.

Unlike the Chantry, Grey Wardens did not yet conscript children, and Duncan would not have been able to explain why he was taking such an interest in the King’s bastard without giving something of the truth away.

Alistair had barely met Maric more than a handful of times throughout his life, which was a shame, since he’d never gotten the chance to see his father’s human side the way Duncan had all those years ago. As a result, Alistair was dismissive of his familial connections and openly resentful about his royal blood… to Duncan, at least. He asked that the information not be made known to the other Wardens unless there was a reason for it.

Though Duncan had been the Commander of the Grey in Ferelden for twenty years now, and seen the recruitment and advancement of many a Warden, mentoring Alistair felt oddly like having a son for the first time. Perhaps he was growing sentimental in his old age, but by the Maker, he was quite fond of the boy already.

Duncan didn’t intend to show him too much favoritism, aware that it would sour Alistair’s relationship with the other Wardens. That sort of thing always turned out bad for the order, and though he knew from personal experience that a recruit who felt he’d been chosen for personal reasons could be very loyal, it never worked out well in the end.

But he thought it only fair that he provide some much needed guidance to make up for lost years, and give Alistair opportunities to grow and embrace responsibility. Unfortunately, thus far Alistair tended to be allergic to the idea of doing anything that didn’t involve acting as Duncan’s loyal shadow. It was clear that the boy was starved for attention and approval, but fearful of doing or saying the wrong thing and being punished for it.

Alistair wasn’t the only Warden-Recruit to have grown up without a loving and present parental figure in his life… far from it. Well-adjusted people with charmed lives rarely found their way into the order. Alistiar would need to find it in himself to get over his anxieties to see that everyone around him still carried a small, scared, lonely child within. He was not special in that regard. But still, he was Fiona’s boy, and that meant something to Duncan. It was a shame she’d left the order, though lucky for her to miraculously be cleared of the taint. She might outlive Alistair. She’d outlive Duncan, that was for certain.

Cailan’s armies were just settling in at Ostagar when Duncan and Alistair departed, leaving the rest of the Wardens, old and new, to wait for their return. They headed north.

Kinloch Hold was the first stop on the tour. There, he found two promising mages who also happened to be in hot water with the First Enchanter and the Knight-Commander. One of them had attempted to assist in the escape of a blood mage from the Tower, and though the other had foiled the plan by coming to the First Enchanter, the Templars wanted to make her Tranquil as a safeguard against corruption spreading in the ranks. She had been friends with the blood mage and his accomplice, and that alone was enough for the Templars to consider her compromised.

Duncan invoked the Right of Conscription once again to take both mages away.

First Enchanter Irving seemed relieved that the young human mage, Solomae Amell, would be spared the Knight-Commander’s over abundance of caution. But he warned Duncan that the elf, Nelmirea Surana, was a rebellious sort who sympathized with blood mages and might be a maleficar herself, though they had no proof of it. Both mages had passed their Harrowings.

Warden-Recruit Surana reacted to her conscription far more positively than either Korren Tabris or Lythra Mahariel had. She was practically gleeful about leaving the Circle.

Solomae Amell did not feel the same way. She begged Irving to let her stay, to not punish her for the company she kept, to remember her loyalty to the Circle over her friends. Her pleas were to no avail. It was either the Joining or Tranquility, and that was really no choice at all.

Alistair was easily flustered by the young mages, both attractive women in their own separate ways. Duncan had to sigh and shake his head. The mages, upon learning that Alistair had once been in training to be a Templar, and noticing his nervousness around them, united in purpose to torment the boy. That was the unfortunate thing about young recruits. They were all barely more than children and had the tendency to act like it. Well, Alistair would have to get over his fear of women and mages one day, and this seemed as likely an opportunity as any.

They went to Highever next, to attend a tournament outside the city. Duncan recruited the winner, Ser Jory, before visiting the castle of Teyrn Cousland. He’d heard promising things about Bryce Cousland’s younger son, Aedan, and had been somewhat disappointed to learn that lad was not to participate in the tourney. He had originally been meant to fight in the melee, but the Couslands were suddenly busy preparing to march south to join King Cailan’s army, along with Arl Rendon Howe and his men, and had no time to spare for a tourney.

Duncan was disappointed once again when Teyrn Bryce Cousland flat out refused to give his blessing for any recruitment efforts that involved his children. Aedan seemed interested in the Wardens, but was reluctant to flaunt his father’s wishes—as reluctant as Duncan was to invoke the Right of Conscription on a nobleman’s son.

Aedan and his twin sister were set to remain at Castle Highever, overseeing their family estate while their parents and older brother marched to war.

Aedan already had a reputation for inheriting the family’s fierce warrior blood, but Elissa was a reserved girl, quiet and timid in Duncan and Alistair’s presence. Her brother seemed used to doing her speaking for her. He told Duncan that although their mother was a known firebrand, the daughter of the famed raider Fearchar Mac Eanraig, and had fought in the war against Orlais, Elissa was totally unlike her.

“The apple fell so far from the tree it might as well have rolled down a hill into a river, never to take root and become a sapling. She doesn’t know the difference between a broadsword and a dagger.” He laughed when he said it, but Duncan didn’t think any of what he said was much of a laughing matter.

The girl cast her eyes downward and seemed uncomfortable to be the topic of conversation. When Alistair made attempts to address her directly, she cringed away and uttered monosyllabic responses, not laughing at a single one of the lad’s jests.

Duncan departed Highever without a Cousland to show for his visit, but the trip was not wholly a waste. Ser Roderick Gilmore, a man-at-arms to Bryce Cousland, agreed to join up with the Wardens so long as he had the Teyrn's blessing to do so. Bryce agreed to release him from service, seeming relieved that Duncan backed down from his interest in Aedan.

Duncan, Alistair, the mages, and the knights all left Highever with Fergus Cousland and his men, traveling with them back down towards Lake Calenhad. Duncan did not plan to accompany them all the way back to Ostagar, however. He wanted to look for more recruits in the dwarven stronghold of Orzammar.

He put Alistair in charge of their four newest recruits, sending them on their way south with the Cousland army. It was the first time Alistair had been put in charge of anything this important, and he was sweating nervously as they prepared to part ways. Duncan just assured Alistair that he had every confidence he could get the new recruits down to Ostagar to await Duncan’s return and their Joining ceremony.

“I don’t know about that,” Alistair said, miserably. “I don’t trust those mages… one of them is acting like she wants to, err,  _ seduce _ me, perhaps? And the other keeps hinting that she’s going to sacrifice me to some demon called Fen’Harel.”

“Just remember, Alistair, mages are people like any other,” Duncan said. It’s what he imagined Fiona might tell her son in this situation. “Treat them with respect and loyalty, and you will likely get it in return.”

Alistair looked unconvinced, but it would have to do.

Before parting, Duncan took the time to pull the mages aside to give them a separate lecture about treating Alistair with respect, despite his Templar background, and explained to them that they were Wardens above all else. They had not yet undergone their Joining, but nonetheless, as Warden Recruits they were expected to comport themselves in a manner worthy of the Wardens. He hoped that it would help keep them from devouring Alistair in his absence.

With that, Duncan turned aside from the stretch of the Imperial Highway that ran southwards between Lake Calenhad and the River Dane, and instead took the road west. One last stop.

It turned out to be a fruitful trip, well worth the detour.

Duncan observed the Provings, and was greatly impressed by the scrappy casteless dwarf who took the day, fighting disguised as a member of the warrior caste. Such audacity. She was thrown in prison for the offense, and naturally Duncan snatched her out from behind bars.

He left Orzammar with Natia Brosca in tow, but did not return to the surface, meaning to take a Deep Roads route southeast under Lake Calenhad. As dangerous as it was to forge a path through the Deep Roads, it would also serve as a shortcut so that they might arrive at Ostagar not long after Alistair and the other Warden-Recruits.

It was a good thing that he had decided this, since he and Natia were not too far outside the thaig when they found another dwarven cast-off: Duran Aeducan, disgraced Prince of Orzammar. Aeducan had been sentenced to die in the Deep Roads for the crime of murdering his older brother, Trian. Cast out of Orzammar with no armor, weapons, or provisions, he had no hope of surviving. Not without Duncan and Natia’s help.

The prince had little choice other than to agree to swear his service to the Grey Wardens in exchange for his life.

Another recruit snatched from the jaws of death.

Duncan was fated to reenact his own conscription time after time, it would seem, but he was no longer embittered. He believed in the cause. Only the Wardens stood between Thedas and the Blight. And though his recruits sometimes ended up dead with the darkspawn blood upon their lips, he still gave them a better end than many of them had been otherwise fated for. The Wardens weren’t all nobility and griffon wings, like Alistair wanted to believe, but they served a vital purpose, and that would have to be enough.

He reminded himself of this later, when Roderick Gilmore collapsed, writhing in pain, vomiting until he died. His failed Joining was a hard blow to all, as apparently he’d become well-liked by the others who marched south with Fergus Cousland and his army. Alistair in particular had described him as a friend, already, and had eagerly told Duncan upon his return from Orzammar that Roderick was a fine fighter and had already taught him a thing or two while sparring.

Ser Jory, the tourney winner, recoiled from the horror of Roderick’s passing, and pulled a sword on Duncan. He saw the wild desperation in the man’s eyes as he tried to back out, but Duncan drew his own blade with grim determination. This was the way of the Wardens. The Joining was a secret because it was blood magic, a ritual that would have drawn the censure of the Chantry and the mistrust of the people if it was made widely known. He believed in this necessary secret, as cruel as it might seem to those who made the promise to Join without fully understanding the reality of sacrifice.

“There is no honor in this,” Jory objected. But Duncan disagreed. To look death full in the face and to take the chance made the Joining the most important proving ground of all. To not turn away from the horror, to realize that not all sacrifices were glorious to behold, to know that in fact most of them were not… that is what made a Warden.

After he had cut Jory down, Dunan turned with grim determination back to the others. He held the chalice, which he had caught from the slip of Roderick’s loosening grip when the man fell choking to death upon the blood, and said, “Who will be next?”

There were four of them lined up. The young mages, and the dwarves who still blinked distrustfully up at the sky.

Alistair stood guard behind them, his face uneasy and his hand on his sword hilt.

The other junior wardens, Korren and Lythra, were also present to witness the ceremony, and stood to each side of the recruits. They had been given their first assignment as full Wardens not long before. Duncan had trusted them to guide the new recruits through gathering up their vials of darkspawn blood, just as Alistair had guided them. It was clear that despite any misgivings, they had not told the newcomers the full story of the Joining process, or how Daveth had died. If they had, Jory might have tried to escape earlier, or perhaps he would have made his peace with the risk and would not have tried to pull a sword on Duncan. They could not know.

One could never be sure how a person would react to the knowledge, and that was why the truth was meant to be revealed only at the ceremony itself.

Duncan had patiently explained this to Korren and Lythra before allowing them to go off with the new recruits. Usually they would still be considered too new themselves, but Duncan wanted to give them this responsibility early. It was a Blight and everything must be done faster, with more urgency. The fact that they had kept the details of the Joining to themselves assured Duncan that whatever their reservations, they were committed to keeping the Warden ways. He wondered if they knew that this had been a test of them as much as the new recruits.

“Who will be next?”

Duran Aeducan was the first to step forward, though he had to walk past Roderick’s fallen form to do it. Roderick would be cleaned up and given proper funeral rites when all this was done, but for now he lay there in his own vomit, a dire reminder of what might soon happen to the rest of them.

The fallen Prince of Orzammar took the chalice and said, “I’m a dead man already.”

It proved to be untrue, as he survived the drink with minimal distress. The others, slightly reassured by his survival, stepped up to drink after him.

Though passing out was common for the Joining, it was not always the case. Duran did not falter, though he complained of an instant headache, but the others did collapse into unconsciousness. The junior Wardens were there to catch them and to watch over them as they recovered. Natia woke first and complained bitterly that she had fallen when Duran had not. It took the mages longer to come around, Solomae the longest of all, and they even started to worry over her. But in the end, there were four new Wardens joined successfully.

Duncan turned his focus to the dead. Ser Roderick, like Daveth earlier, would be honored as a full Warden. The only one who had truly failed the Joining, as Duncan saw it, was Ser Jory. He had rejected the Wardens in his final moments, and so Duncan would respect his wishes at least that much. The names of all the Wardens who underwent the Joining were recorded and would be sent to Weisshaupt. Ser Roderick Gilmore and Daveth of Denerim would be among them, but Ser Jory would not.

While the new Wardens recovered from the Joining ordeal, Duncan turned his thoughts back to preparation for the battle ahead. Though many skirmishes had been fought and many battalions had been sent ranging into the wilds since the King and his armies came to Ostagar, something else was looming on the horizon. Something bigger.

Cailan, not content with the smaller battles over the weeks, wanted to draw out as many Darkspawn as possible in one go. He even wanted the archdemon to appear, thinking that if they drew it out they could kill it right then and there. He wanted a glorious battle, the likes of which would be told to future generations the way the Battle of River Dane had been told to him as a child. It would, if he was successful, go down as the shortest Blight in the history of Thedas. The First Blight had lasted two hundred years. If King Cailan had his way, the Fifth would last a matter of months and be confined to the Korcari Wilds.

This plan made Duncan uneasy, but he was in no position to gainsay the King. Some might see the alliance the King forged with the Wardens and look upon him, the Warden-Commander, as a trusted advisor, a favored general. In truth he felt that he had little say in anything. King Cailan and Loghain Mac Tir were the ones truly in control of the Ostagar outpost. Others, like the Circle Mages, Ash Warriors, and Grey Wardens, were there to be told what to do.

Duncan went alone to a war table meeting with Loghain and the King. The new recruits needed time to recover and so he left Korren and Lythra to monitor them. To Alistair he gave the task of seeing that the bodies of Roderick and Jory be taken to the Sisters for burning.

He would have brought Alistair along with him to the meeting with the King and Mac Tir, but Alistair was especially reluctant to participate in such meetings due to the familial connection. He said that Cailan had requested a private meeting with him earlier, before Duncan had arrived back at Ostagar from his detour to Orzammar. In Alistair’s estimation the meeting had been extremely awkward, as he’d barely had any contact with his half-brother over the years and didn’t know what they really had to talk about or why Cailan had chosen that day to suddenly care. The King had tried to be friendly, asking how Alistair liked being a Warden compared to a Templar and if he was excited to see an archdemon. He asked some inane questions about Redcliffe, where Alistair had spent his early childhood in the care of Cailan’s uncle, Eamon Guerrin.

“It was all so strange,” Alistair had said. “He never showed any interest in me before, but now he wants to know how I  _ feel? _ I’m still not sure what he wanted, really. We didn’t talk about anything important.”

Duncan offered what he thought to be obvious. “Maybe he just wanted to get to know you, as you are his brother.”

“But  _ why?” _ Alistair knit his brows together in frustration.

“Perhaps you should have asked him that, Alistair.”

“No thanks. Just don’t make me go through a meeting like that again, alright? I felt cornered without you here.”

Duncan sighed. He was in no position to deny the King anything, and if Cailan had developed a belated interest in his brother, Duncan could not protect Alistair from awkward attempts at conversation. But he only said, “I will not bring you to meetings with the King unless he requests your presence specifically.”

Part of him thought that he should do just the opposite, in order to force Alistair to come to the realization that he could not hide from things that made him uncomfortable—in this case, his royal family connections. But Duncan’s lingering soft spot for Alistair overrode this impulse, and he did not force the issue. After all, Alistair didn’t even know half of his identity because his mother did not want him to, and Duncan had to respect Fiona’s wishes. So if Alistair wanted to live in a state of denial, he had that in common with his mother, whether he knew it or not.

“Ho, Duncan,” said the King excitedly when he arrived at the meeting. “How goes the initiation of your new recruits?”

How to answer that? Usually the Joining was undertaken in a more secluded location, within the halls of the Warden fortress in Denerim, and if anyone died in the process it was not revealed to anyone outside the Wardens. Once recruited by the Wardens, a person usually disappeared from public life and severed ties with family or friends, so there was no need to give an accounting of whether they were serving in the Order or had died in the Joining.

“It is over,” he said, opting for a non-answer and hoping the King did not really care. As it turned out, he did not, and dove into discussing the battle plans.

When Duncan returned to the Warden’s section of the camp and told Alistair of the King’s special instructions for him, the lad reacted about as well as Duncan had anticipated. He chafed at the idea of Cailan overriding Duncan as the Commander in order to decide his battle assignment, and objected to being given a task outside the battle, away from Duncan’s side.

He was still so young. He had a warrior’s training but a child’s understanding of war. Someday he would learn that there would always be darkspawn to fight and that battle was not the glorious thing the bards sang about. But as a conciliatory gesture, Duncan offered to let him choose the Warden who would accompany him on the mission to light the signal beacon atop the Tower of Ishal.

“This is a very important part of the battle plan. Your role is key, even if it does not seem glamorous to you. Choose your companion wisely,” Duncan instructed.

“Lythra. The Dalish archer,” Alistair said, without hesitation.

“Very well.” Duncan nodded.

Lythra was displeased at the idea of being drawn from the vanguard of the battle. Duncan had given Alistair command of this mission for two, and so he backed up the lad’s decision. The elf did not seem keen on following Alistair’s lead, and Alistair became visibly nervous and regretful. He made a self-deprecating joke about the King being capricious enough that he might demand Alistair put on a dress and dance for his amusement. That was no good. Alistair would have to learn to speak with confidence and stand by the decisions he made, if he was ever to earn the respect and loyalty of the junior Wardens. Lythra would have to get used to obeying commands, even those she didn't like, before Duncan would allow her to lead.

“The decision has been made,” Duncan said, sternly. “And there will be no dancing. The two of you will stand by at the Tower until you see my signal.” He wished them good luck, then, and even threw in a “May the Maker and the Creators watch over you both,” before turning to go prepare the rest of the Warden forces for their roles in the upcoming battle.

“Duncan…” Alistair said, and he paused, turning back. The boy looked like he was searching for some important words, brows knit together in thought, but eventually he just settled on, “Stay safe out there.”

Lythra’s eyes were reflective in the light of the bonfire as she looked at him, and her face was a dour mask he could not read, but she said, “Dareth shiral, Shem,” with a solemn nod.

Duncan returned the nod, acknowledging them both. “Watch for my signal,” he said, and left them to their duty.

He would not see them again, but when he lay dying beside the fallen King, soldiers and wardens falling all around him, he looked to the beacon. It had been lit far too late, and he would never know why they had missed his signal, but it had not mattered. He’d seen the torches of Loghain’s army turning away and marching into the dark rather than joining the fray as they had been meant to, even when the beacon blazed out its call to battle.

He had taken down the ogre that killed King Cailan, but without Loghain’s forces all was lost. In Duncan’s final moments, looking up to the fading light of the beacon, he thought that he had failed. Failed the Wardens, the King, all of Ferelden… failed Fiona, and Maric, and their son.

Even if Alistair or Lythra were alive and had lit the beacon, the terrible wave of darkspawn would soon overwhelm all of Ostagar, and they would not hold the tower for long. All the young recruits would fall here at Ostagar, their careers as Wardens cut short, and he would never know if their sacrifice meant a thing. The first tenant of the Warden code was  _ in war, victory _ … and this was not a victory, so what could the sacrifice of their deaths be worth?

_ I’m sorry, Fiona…  _ he thought, and then he thought of Genevieve saving him from the hangman’s noose all those years ago. He’d told her he would rather die than join the Wardens, but in the end had been grateful for his life. He didn’t want to die, now, he wanted to—


End file.
